What does Black Motherhood Look Like In Music?

Motherhood for Black women is often defined by antiquated ideals revolving around servitude, sacrifice, and a loss of one’s sense of self.

Our mothers, grandmothers, and aunties made motherhood the beginning and end of their lives (bless them) and often expect their daughters to do the same. And plenty of women enjoy being in the service of their children, families, and communities. But that should not be lauded as a universal mindset. This view of motherhood is at odds with the many different ways Black millennials experience motherhood and can be damaging to young mothers, especially those in the public eye. 

Before I get into this, I want to share this poem by Maya Angelou:

Storm, blow me from here 

With your fiercest wind 

Let me float across the sky 

‘Til I can rest again 

Fall gently, snowflakes

Cover me with white 

Cold icy kisses and 

Let me rest tonight. 

Rain, sun, curving sky

Mountain, oceans, leaf and stone 

Star shine, moon glow 

You’re all that I can call my own. 

— Woman Work

Maya Angelou

I’ve got the children to tend 

The clothes to mend

The floor to mop 

The food to shop 

Then the chicken to fry 

The baby to dry 

I got company to feed 

The garden to weed 

I’ve got the shirts to press 

The tots to dress 

The cane to be cut 

I gotta clean up this hut 

And the cotton to pick 

Shine on me, sunshine 

Rain on me, rain 

Fall softly, dewdrops 

And cool my brow again.

Though we are decades away from the time when this poem was penned, I think it is still a fairly accurate snapshot of the type of mothers Black women are expected to be.

Black women are told that they aren’t allowed to have children and have their own lives too, especially mothers in the music industry. Mothers like Cardi B, Yung Miami, and most famously, Miss Lauryn Hill, are not supported when they decide to continue being musicians after having kids. But, per usual, Black women get things done anyways. We got the gift of Miseducation of Lauryn Hill because of a woman’s defiance of those who tried to run her life and career. Black mothers in music are creating their own lane and opting for their own versions of motherhood, both aided by and separate from their careers.

Cardi B. performing at Coachella while pregnant with daughter Kulture.

Black mothers have an innate ability to instill in us the qualities that give us the glow of Black Girl Magic in the way they slather our faces in vaseline and adorn our heads with deftly woven plaits and multi-colored barrettes. In everything they do, our mothers teach us to love our blackness in all shades and textures. I find many of these same lessons in Solange’s music.

Solange Knowles and her son Julez

Solange uses her music as a means to affirm her own son in the identity and experiences, both beautiful and terrifying, that could only belong to a Black man. In “F.U.B.U.” she sings “I hope my son will bang this song so loud, that he almost makes his walls fall down. Cause his momma wants to make him proud, oh, to be us.” Solange creates art with the goal of teaching the world that Black is beautiful, mothering us all in a way. Through the same medium, she uses music to explore and validate her own thoughts and feelings. And unlike our widely believed misconceptions about Black mothers, the two don’t have to be mutually exclusive. In the same way that artists are mothers in music and real life, they exist independently as complex, emotional human beings.

Creating art is an inherently selfish act. Art often requires introspection and a deep understanding of what’s going on in our own heads. As Black mothers make music, they must find a way to understand their identity with and without motherhood attached to it and decide what will be immortalized on wax. Bbymutha is not defined by motherhood alone because she knows she is so much more. She took an insult and reclaimed it as a stage name, and through her raps, she intertwines her identity as a mother with her music without it sounding contrived or campy. She is not a mother without being a rapper and she is not a rapper without being a mother. Those two parts of her identity sometimes intersect, and sometimes they do not because she raps about her kids the same way she raps about relationships, frustrations, the industry, and haters alike. Bbymutha treats motherhood as an aspect of her life that doesn’t necessarily diminish any other part of herself. She understands that mothers are at their best when they can still be who they are—and refuses to be anything else. 

Bbymutha and her children. Shot by Diwang Valdez for The Fader.

I’d like to revisit the Angelou poem for a second. I found it especially jarring because the narrator turns motherhood into something absolutely devoid of humanity until she can find just a single moment of solace. Only then is she allowed to breath, to feel, to rest. For a second, her motherhood doesn’t exist, only she does. When I read the last few stanza I immediately thought of Rico Nasty—more specifically, her project Anger Management. The album sounds like the process of working through the intensity of absolute rage and just experience your own feelings. From the outburst of frustration all the way to a solemn resolution, we hear a woman become uninhibited and given space to simply feel.

Rico Nasty and her son Cameron.

Through her music alone, a casual fan might not know she is a mother, and I think that’s the point. For Rico, her space to exist outside of her identity as a mother is her music. She can create these characters and explore creative concepts born out of the things she feels, hears, and reads with no other expectations. Like more traditional working mothers, her career is her own. She works with the goal of ultimately creating a life for her son, but the work itself is all her own rain, sky, and curving sun. 

Rain, sun, curving sky

Mountain, oceans, leaf and stone 

Star shine, moon glow 

You’re all that I can call my own. 

For all they give to us, Black mothers deserve to call their own lives their own.

Black mothers who create and give art to the world deserve to not be burdened by their motherhood. They should be able to live, make music, and love their children in whatever way makes sense. Music and motherhood are arguably two of the most beautiful experiences of humanity, so why sully that when they come as a package deal?